In this gorgeously gritty image, we’re looking west along the south side of Hollywood Blvd from Las Palmas Ave. On the corner is the ticket office for the Union Pacific railway, and past it we can see the blade sign for the Egyptian Theatre. Playing at the time was “Oklahoma!” which had its Los Angeles premiere on November 17, 1955, so I’m guessing this photo was taken later that year. And opposite it on the north side we can see Pickwick Books, an iconic Hollywood Blvd bookstore that was open from 1938 to 1995.
Here is an undated map showing us how many bookstores used to be in Hollywood. At the time of writing this (March 2024) where was only one left, Larry Edmunds.
This how that stretch of Hollywood Blvd looked in May 2022.
I was just a babe in ’55, but a few years later, and all those book shops would have been heaven for me!
The old Hollywood Hotel site is boarded up down the road. The J.C. Penny has scaffolding as they seem to be getting ready to recondition and expand up into added floor space for what becomes the Hollywood Medical Center building….notice the flag pole has not yet been removed. The ground floor will hold a restaurant venue. Pickwick will have a modernized frontage put in place and expand west into the building holding the Hollywood Circle Cocktail Lounge/The Circle Cafe (whichever it was) bordering N. McCadden Place corner. (See Martin’s list of places under “C” for Circle.) Judging from the clothing most folks were wearing, the guy with the short sleeve casual shirt is either from a place that’s normally cold or he’s expecting that it really is always Sunnee Kaleefornee-uh! That block was going to become a real light show each day the moment the sun went down. On a lucky evening you might even catch a minute-man missile launch over the coastal skies.
Hollywood Book Store at 6760 just east one door from the Hollywood Theater is found in older images when the Italian Kitchen was down on the corner.